things are looking up?

from the LATimes....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...ug05,1,3825578.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Highlights...

Newsrooms across the country may echo with gloom and doom, but journalism school graduates report better job prospects and a more positive outlook than at any time since the 2000 peak of the dot-com boom, according to a study released Friday.

More than 62% of those receiving bachelor's degrees in journalism in 2005 said they had found a job by late last year, up from 56% in 2003, according to the survey by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research. The center is based at the University of Georgia's Grady College.

The newspaper industry has struggled with declining revenues and job reductions, with more than 2,000 editorial positions cut from 2001 to 2005, according to the Newspaper Assn. of America. Yet 8.6% of those receiving bachelor's degrees in journalism last spring took jobs at newspapers or wire services, the most significant hiring in five years, the survey reported.

The balance of graduates who found work did so in television, radio, the Internet, public relations, marketing and related fields. Nearly 60% of all the journalism graduates with bachelor's degrees were able to stay in the communications field, compared with less than half who found journalism or communications jobs two years earlier.

The $29,000 median salary of 2005 journalism graduates is nearly $2,000 below other liberal arts graduates. By contrast, computer science graduates earned nearly $51,000 and accounting graduates, earned more than $46,000.

 

Off the top of my head, two thoughts:

1, When newspapers cut jobs, that's news. When new papers, Web sites and the like make hires, that's not news -- or at least it's not reported as news.

2, Like the old joke about trading in a 42-year-old for two 21-year-olds, the media business is always keen to trade in somebody making $80K for two kids they can pay $25K each and pocket the difference.

 

that's exactly what i was thinking.

 

And I may be giving too much credit ... why not one 21-year-old making $25 and pocket the $55K? Never mind in what fashion the work suffers.

 

Hell, just cut the position and save all the money. That's what is happening these days.

 

It's also too bad bright, aspiring journalists are entering the work force full of disillusioned, cynical editors and reporters who wouldn't know how to nurture if it hit them over the head with a Chip Scanlon coaching tips pamphlet.

 

Going into a career expecting to be "nurtured" is a problem in and of itself.

 

Nurtured is probably too fluffy a word, but the old hands in the business are generally a lot colder than necessary. The line between helpful and 'nurturing' really isn't that fine.

 

Well, maybe it's because papers are more willing to throw experience under the bus, and newcomers seem to think they don't need much of anything from more experienced journos.

 

In my experience, limited as it is, the attitude of the younger writer makes little difference, especially in the first couple weeks. The smart ones warm up to younger guns willing to learn, the stubborn ones... don't.

I really have no problem with SEs or veteran writers giving younger guys with a haughty sense of entitlement all kinds of shit, but it's the guys that are really willing to learn and grow that get the unfair end of the stick, and it happens way too often.

 

If I look up, a bird shits in my eye.

 

I think there's a cream you can get for that.

As a young journalist, I'm more frustrated by the lack of response from those around me who have been here longer.
When you tell me everything is good I start to wonder, is it?
I'd much rather get a story ripped to shreads and get plenty of constructive criticism then a pat on the back and an "well, you did a good job."
Its hard to learn when no one will show you what your doing wrong.